Table Of ContentTHE STRUCTURE OF OBJECTS
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The Structure of Objects
KATHRIN KOSLICKI
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The Author
Kathrin Koslicki was born in Munich, Germany; she is currently Associate
ProfessorofPhilosophyattheUniversityofColorado,Boulder,andistheauthor
ofmanyarticlesinmetaphysics,thephilosophyoflanguageandAncientGreek
philosophy,particularlyAristotle.HerworkhasappearedinHistoryofPhilosophy
Quarterly, Synthese,Nous,Mindand Language,PhilosophicalStudies,theJournal
of Philosophy, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research and Dialectica, among
otherpublications.
ADDRESS
KathrinKoslicki,
DepartmentofPhilosophy,
UniversityofColorado,Boulder,
Hellems169
UCB232
Boulder,CO80309-0232
E-mail:Kathrin.Koslicki@colorado.edu
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Preface
The main purpose of this book is to give an analysis of ordinary material
objects, those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in
ordinary,scientificallyinformeddiscourse.Inpursuingthistask,Iwanttofocus
inparticularonthequestionofhowthepartsofsuchobjects,assumingthatthey
haveparts,arerelatedtothewholeswhichtheycompose.Thatmost,orpossibly
all,ordinarymaterialobjectshavepartsItaketobeanobviousintuitivedatum:
we would commonly say, for example, that among the parts of a tree are its
branches,itstrunk,itsleavesanditsroots;amongthepartsofatableareitslegs
and its top; among the parts of an H O molecule are its two hydrogen atoms
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anditssingleoxygenatom.AsIunderstandit,then,toaskthequestion,‘‘What
are ordinarymaterialobjects?’’,isatleastinparttoask,‘‘Howarethesewholes
relatedtothepartsthatcomposethem?’’,or‘‘Whatisthenatureoftherelations
ofparthood andcompositionformaterialobjects?’’.
Many philosophers today find themselves in the grip of an exceedingly
deflationaryconceptionofwhatitmeanstobeanobject,accordingtowhichany
plurality ofobjects,no matterhowdisparate orgerrymandered, itselfcomposes
an object, even if the objects in question fail to exhibit interesting similarities,
internalunity,cohesionorcausal interactionamongst each other.To illustrate,
according to this approach, George W. Bush’s left hand together with the
Eiffel Tower compose a further object, their sum, aggregate or fusion, which
is partially located in the White House and partially located in Paris. The
commitment to such initially counterintuitive objects follows from the belief
thatnoprincipledsetofcriteriaisavailablebymeansofwhichtodistinguishthe
intuitivelygerrymanderedobjectsfromthecommonsensicalones;myprojectin
thisbookistopersuadethereaderthatsystematicprinciplesbymeansofwhich
compositioncanberestrictedcanbefoundandhencethatweneednotembrace
thisdeflationaryapproachtothequestionofwhatitmeanstobeanobject.
To this end, I develop in what follows a more full-blooded neo-Aristotelian
accountofparthoodandcompositionaccordingtowhichobjectsarestructured
wholes:itisintegraltotheexistenceandidentityofanobject,onthisconception,
thatitspartsexhibitacertainmannerofarrangement.Forexample,inorderfor
theretobeanH Omolecule,thetwohydrogenatomsandoneoxygenatomthat
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composeitmustbearrangedintheparticularmannerofchemicalbonding,which
requirestheatomsinquestiontoshareelectrons.Thisstructure-basedconception
ofparthoodandcomposition,alongwithsomeofitshistoricalprecursorsaswell
assomeofitscontemporarycompetitors,areexploredindetailbelow.
The material put forth in this book, over the years, has been presented
at numerous talks and conferences and has benefited from the help of many
Description:Kathrin Koslicki offers an analysis of ordinary material objects, those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in ordinary, scientifically informed discourse. She focuses particularly on the question of how the parts of such objects are related to the wholes which they compose.
